title: [Control of Chagas disease in pregnant Latin-American women and her children].
abstract: Chagas disease is a chronic and systemic infection caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. According to estimates from WHO, 10 million people are affected by this parasite. In the last years, birthrate among the immigrant women from Latin America settled in the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid has been increasing, and as T. cruzi can be transmitted from mother to child, in fact 11 cases of congenital Chagas disease have been confirmed. Therefore, the aim of this paper is encouraging improvements in the coverage of the anti-T. cruzi antibodies detection in pregnant women from endemic areas. By this strategy, an active search for infected pregnant women and early detection of her infected newborns could be conducted, and then an early specific treatment could be administrated. Thus, there could be an important contribution to the control of Chagas disease in non-endemic area.
authors.affiliation: María Flores-Chavez, Servicio de Parasitología, Centro Nacional de Microbiología - Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ctra. Majadahonda-Pozuelo km 2, 28220, Madrid, Spain. mflores@isciii.es.
authors.forename: Francisco J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Merino
authors.forename: Rocío
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Martínez-Ruiz
authors.forename: Iciar
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Olabarrieta
authors.forename: Paloma
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Merino
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: García-Bujalance
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gastañaga
authors.forename: María
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Flores-Chavez
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000913:Antibodies, Protozoan / Q000032:analysis; D014355:Chagas Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000469:parasitology / Q000628:therapy*; D032921:Consensus; D019353:Endemic Diseases; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D017053:Infection Control; D007843:Latin America; D011247:Pregnancy; D014349:Trypanosoma cruzi
chemical_list: D000913:Antibodies, Protozoan